Great thread! I figured I would add another slant to it though
Been installing these for a few years now with great success...

Its a Garn wood gasification boiler. The concept is pretty easy, you load the fire box with wood and light it, turn on the inducer fan timer and close the door.
Once the fire is lit, the charge starts to burn and when the temps rise, it will re-burn in a secondary burn chamber. The burner is actually immersed in a 1500, 2000, or a 3500 gallon tank of water and the flue gas pipe makes 2 more passes before exiting out the back of the unit. The last one I did was direct vented and during full fire (450,000 BTU), I can put my hand under the exhaust and hold it there:eek1 You basically fire it until the tank is charged to 190 degrees and then let it burn out. Normally, a once a day firing is all that you'll need but that depends on the type of heating you have in the house, the size and of course the outside temperatures.

I thought I'd add a different perspective to the discussion about firewood: out here in my corner of the Empty Quarter we only have realistic access to ponderosa pine, cottonwood, and occasionally aspen, elm, and spruce/fir.

Ponderosa has a high to very pitch content, so if you want to burn it low and slow (for the 3 hrs or so a full firebox lasts), you run the risk of packing off your stovepipe and/or chimney cap. DAMHIK :dog

Cottonwood burns hotter, but it can be difficult to start and it smokes like a tire fire in the process. It also leaves lots of ash behind. Easy on a chimney, though.

Spruce and fir start really easily, burn clean and reasonably hot (in a Western sense), and leave almost no ash. Usually too far to drive for, though.

Elm is hard to start, smells like ubambida when burning, and leaves great drifts of ash in a stove. Burns hot & clean, though.

Aspen is easy to start and burns clean, but dead trees large enough to warrant cutting are few and far between. It also isn't a very hot wood.

So there's your Wyoming Fuelwood Primer thumbnail. Next time you easterners become disillusioned with what's in your woodpile, think about the above and rejoice heartily.

I am going to check out a woodstove later today that is supposedly soapstone. I am not sure what kind of condition it is in, but if it is decent, you can't beat the price (free). I am too cheap to actually think about PAYING for a woodstove if I can help it, let alone get a new one! You guys must be rich! I can barely afford to pay attention!

Hey Aaron, I just checked my USB stick and it still has the music on it that you wanted. I might possibly get the day off tomorrow, you gonna be around?

i LOVE wood fires....log fires but especially open fires but here in Christchurch unfortunately we have a pretty bad inversion layer-thingy (tech speak there!) which means we have extremely strict air pollution laws regarding fires......wood burning heating is becoming rarer and rarer

Great thread! I figured I would add another slant to it though
Been installing these for a few years now with great success...

Its a Garn wood gasification boiler. The concept is pretty easy, you load the fire box with wood and light it, turn on the inducer fan timer and close the door.
Once the fire is lit, the charge starts to burn and when the temps rise, it will re-burn in a secondary burn chamber. The burner is actually immersed in a 1500, 2000, or a 3500 gallon tank of water and the flue gas pipe makes 2 more passes before exiting out the back of the unit. The last one I did was direct vented and during full fire (450,000 BTU), I can put my hand under the exhaust and hold it there:eek1 You basically fire it until the tank is charged to 190 degrees and then let it burn out. Normally, a once a day firing is all that you'll need but that depends on the type of heating you have in the house, the size and of course the outside temperatures.

These boiler are not the old smoky classic outdoor boilers that you see littering the landscape and filling the valleys with smoke

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cool...

We just installed this district heating systems on the campus of Franklin Pierce University...

The system is made by Swebo of Sweden and runs on wood pellets that are stored in the silo next to the building.. Basically just a central plant that runs on wood...

The interesting part about this system is that it is metered btu system... so the end user, in this case the university, pays a per-btu price to the vendor that supplies the wood pellets... kind of a gimmik in my book... but the idea is that it creates a rate-payer/utility company relationship between the university and pellet maker and the university only pays for the energy it uses; there is no capitalized cost for the equipment sitting on the campus because it still belongs to the pellet maker..

It will consume 650 tons of pellets per year, replacing a system that used 106,000 gallons of LP per year.

I am going to check out a woodstove later today that is supposedly soapstone. I am not sure what kind of condition it is in, but if it is decent, you can't beat the price (free). I am too cheap to actually think about PAYING for a woodstove if I can help it, let alone get a new one! You guys must be rich! I can barely afford to pay attention!

Hey Aaron, I just checked my USB stick and it still has the music on it that you wanted. I might possibly get the day off tomorrow, you gonna be around?

Click to expand...

*yikes*... free can sometimes be expensive... be careful if there is anything wrong with the stove.. the gaskets going bad being the most dangerous because (A) often you can't see them all & (B) because you can't control the fire once it gets going if you can't control the air flow..

I dont have anyplace to put a free standing wood stove so I'm looking for a fireplace insert. We've always had wood burning stoves and now we cant.
I'm toying with the idea of building my own grate made of pipe with a small blower to blow air thru it. I've seen one before and was amazed at how much heat it put out! Sure, nothing like a wood stove but at least I can salvage some heat out of the fireplace when we have it going. I have access to wood, I want to use it!

The one I saw looked kinda like this.

Click to expand...

There are a bunch of makers that make fire place inserts that are UL rated..

Great thread! I figured I would add another slant to it though
Been installing these for a few years now with great success...

Its a Garn wood gasification boiler. The concept is pretty easy, you load the fire box with wood and light it, turn on the inducer fan timer and close the door.
Once the fire is lit, the charge starts to burn and when the temps rise, it will re-burn in a secondary burn chamber. The burner is actually immersed in a 1500, 2000, or a 3500 gallon tank of water and the flue gas pipe makes 2 more passes before exiting out the back of the unit. The last one I did was direct vented and during full fire (450,000 BTU), I can put my hand under the exhaust and hold it there:eek1 You basically fire it until the tank is charged to 190 degrees and then let it burn out. Normally, a once a day firing is all that you'll need but that depends on the type of heating you have in the house, the size and of course the outside temperatures.

I dont have anyplace to put a free standing wood stove so I'm looking for a fireplace insert. We've always had wood burning stoves and now we cant.
I'm toying with the idea of building my own grate made of pipe with a small blower to blow air thru it. I've seen one before and was amazed at how much heat it put out! Sure, nothing like a wood stove but at least I can salvage some heat out of the fireplace when we have it going. I have access to wood, I want to use it!

The one I saw looked kinda like this.

Click to expand...

There's a guy on eBay that sells those, but at those prices, you are better off to try and find an old used insert with a blower.

With the fireplace, you will burn at least 6 to 8 splits an hour, if not more, and the insert allows you to control that burn much better.

You can also get residential grade gassification boilers. I think Tarn still makes them, as they were the Cadillac, but there are others. I would love to have one eventually as they are very efficient and allow you to keep your forced hot water heat/hot water setup.

*yikes*... free can sometimes be expensive... be careful if there is anything wrong with the stove.. the gaskets going bad being the most dangerous because (A) often you can't see them all & (B) because you can't control the fire once it gets going if you can't control the air flow..

Yeah... we'll be around..

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I checked it out on Saturday night and it is decent shape. It is a Hearthstone soapstone, but there is a crack in the soapstone in the front. If I am not mistaken, these stoves are lined with fire brick, correct? I would replace the gaskets anyway, since the graphite rope isn't all that expensive, and a hell of a lot cheaper than actually buying a woodstove. People around here seem to know for the most part what these things are worth, and a used stove in decent shape goes for several hundred bucks.

You can also get residential grade gassification boilers. I think Tarn still makes them, as they were the Cadillac, but there are others. I would love to have one eventually as they are very efficient and allow you to keep your forced hot water heat/hot water setup.

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Yup... Plus the Tarms can come as a dual fuel boiler... so that when the system is calling for heat and there is no wood it will switch over to oil or propane..

The guy whose land we cut our christmas trees on has one... he loves it... but man does it take up some realestate in his basement... I'm guessing his is a much older one though...

I checked it out on Saturday night and it is decent shape. It is a Hearthstone soapstone, but there is a crack in the soapstone in the front. If I am not mistaken, these stoves are lined with fire brick, correct? I would replace the gaskets anyway, since the graphite rope isn't all that expensive, and a hell of a lot cheaper than actually buying a woodstove. People around here seem to know for the most part what these things are worth, and a used stove in decent shape goes for several hundred bucks.

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Hey.. for the price... what are you going to do...

you could always pick up a new plate steel one for a couple hundred bucks... maybe not the fanciest things.. but they are new, UL rated and probably a lot safer than a stove of questionable condition...

that is pretty cheap insurance in my book if you are going to be using the stove for anything more than an occational fire that you are tending... thats just me and my own paranoid self though...

If you do get the free one... You might fire it up outside your house first and see how it runs...

Great thread! I figured I would add another slant to it though
Been installing these for a few years now with great success...

Its a Garn wood gasification boiler. The concept is pretty easy, you load the fire box with wood and light it, turn on the inducer fan timer and close the door.
Once the fire is lit, the charge starts to burn and when the temps rise, it will re-burn in a secondary burn chamber. The burner is actually immersed in a 1500, 2000, or a 3500 gallon tank of water and the flue gas pipe makes 2 more passes before exiting out the back of the unit. The last one I did was direct vented and during full fire (450,000 BTU), I can put my hand under the exhaust and hold it there:eek1 You basically fire it until the tank is charged to 190 degrees and then let it burn out. Normally, a once a day firing is all that you'll need but that depends on the type of heating you have in the house, the size and of course the outside temperatures.

These boiler are not the old smoky classic outdoor boilers that you see littering the landscape and filling the valleys with smoke

Click to expand...

This whole gasification stuff is really cool.......Greenwood in the one I'm lusting after.

You can add insulated water storage to them and depending on weather only need a fire every few days. My basement wants one of these real bad. Only questing is what would I do with the lump of stone up on the 1st floor (Hearthstone). Maybe when I get older.

I think doing these myself adds to the general satisfaction of heating with wood. Not to sound like some sort of Luddite, but the trip into the countryside to cut firewood, and the (usually) cooperative effort of splitting it really is to me integral to wood stove ownership & operation.

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You go right ahead with that. I don't miss splitting and stacking at all.